Palm Springs history: The architectural minds behind Volcano House, Sands and Shadows

He needn’t have gone to war. He was too old. But Harold J. Bissner Sr. enlisted anyway, joining the World War II fight after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The horrors inflicted that day induced Bissner to help to his country despite his advanced age. His son, Harold J. Bissner Jr. followed his father into service despite his lack of majority.

As a skilled architect, Bissner Sr. was commissioned and sent to Quantico, Virginia for training. Instead of the Marines, Bissner Jr. joined the Navy. The Pasadena Post reported, “Harold Bissner, 41-year-old architect… has been commissioned a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, it was disclosed last night. With his commission in the armed forces, the Bissner family completes its all-out entrance into the war effort. Mrs. Dorothy Bissner is employed at the Army Air Depot in San Bernardino and Harold Bissner Jr., 17, has joined the Navy and leaves for training this weekend.” After basic training, Bissner Jr. was deployed to protect the landings at Guadalcanal. His father was in the same theater of war, in charge of the operations at Henderson Field during that major U.S. offensive in the Pacific.

Both Bissners survived the war. Returning home, the younger man qualified for the GI Bill but instead of going to college elected to learn architecture from his father. The post-war housing boom brought an abundance of work, with the father-son team producing literally hundreds of single-family houses and apartments according to James G. Spencer, FAIA.

The work of the Bissners is often misattributed. It’s understandable as they share a name, and Bissner Jr. had as prolific a career as his father. Leaving the orbit of his father in 1951, he partnered with John E. Nyberg and together they designed many adventurous modern buildings including the folded-plate-roofed Van De Kamp restaurants and the Volcano House east of Barstow, (famously purchased by Huell Howser after featuring it on his PBS show.)

Although not differentiated between Bissner Sr. and Bissner Jr. to understand the grace of their vision through images of many Bissner designs, take a gander at Michael Locke’s aggregated album, https://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_locke/albums/72157657395547313/

Spencer notes that Bissner Jr. pursued modernism, while Sr. “embraced a more traditional approach.” That may be somewhat true in Pasadena, where there are, indeed, a surfeit of gorgeous Bissner houses in Spanish Mediterranean, Georgian, Moderne and Monterrey Adobe styles, but Bissner Sr.’s work in the desert was decidedly modern.

Luke Leuschner of the Historical Society of Palm Desert has done a deep dive. Harold James Bissner was born in 1901 in San Francisco and it appears he grew up in Washington. He graduated only from high school and never had any technical training. Leuschner faintly recalls his grandson saying he came to the Southwest by hitchhiking and jumping on trains.

His first job was as a draftsman for the firm Lescher & Mahoney in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1921, he moved to Los Angeles and worked as a small-time designer and draftsman for a number of architectural offices. In 1925, his son Harold Bissner Jr. was born, just in time to endure the Great Depression. To survive, Bissner Sr. did a lot of speculative development, designing and building houses, selling them, and then repeating the process.

In 1931, Bissner started his own firm in Pasadena. He designed fancy residential projects in all sorts of modes. He was not limited to a "signature" style and was gradually progressing towards modernism. It was in the late 1930s and early 1940s that his works begin being recognized and published in magazines.

Then World War II interrupted the country and Bissner’s career, sending both father and son to the Pacific. The war had one definite benefit: the architecture of Japan was revelatory.

Upon his return, Bissner partnered with architect Harold Zook and between 1947 and 1948, designed some strikingly modern projects, notably Gwinn's Drive-In in Pasadena on Colorado Blvd. Floyd Gwinn, mayor of Pasadena and his wife Helen, commissioned the attention-getting design which was described as dual-functioning with a drive-thru and a traditional restaurant. At the height of his powers in the 1950s, Bissner designed dozens of modern apartment buildings in Pasadena, many of them lining Colorado Boulevard.

He also created custom residential residences, his own personal houses, and notably Mac Blankenhorn’s Rancho Mirage house (1938) after Blankenhorn left Smoke Tree Ranch and Palm Springs, and the Gibbon house in Smoke Tree (1951), placing Bissner firmly in the desert. He easily switched between modern, Japanese Modern, and Ranch style. He was one of the preeminent architects of Pasadena in the mid-century.

After Bissner’s exposure to Japanese architecture and his work with Zook, his designs become decidedly modern. That suited the desert just fine. By the late 1950s, he moved permanently to Palm Desert and began yet another phase of his life and career.

Bissner designed the first phase of Sands and Shadows, a circle of condominiums much in the style of the nearby Sandpiper development. The paper took note, “Neill Davis and Harold J. Bissner, both from Pasadena, report they have pooled their talents and energies to create the Sands and Shadows apartments.” Located off the Palms to Pines Highway at Shadow Mountain Drive, the complex featured a swimming pool, recreation and garden area in a novel “own-your-own” 1,100-square-foot apartments. Bissner liked the units well enough, moving in to stay.

The success of the Sands and Shadows was replicated with his own project, the Halekulani Apartments (1959) on Tumbleweed Lane. The “modern apartments, decorated in a Hawaiian motif and created to offer comfortable resort living at moderate rentals” were based on a previous design in Pasadena. “Set in four separate buildings which form a center square, the apartments boast refrigerated air conditioning, carpeting and drapes and built-in breakfast bars.”

The Village Green (1961), second phase of Sands and Shadows (1963), Maui Palms (1964), Mountain Shadows (1966) followed. Bissner also designed custom residences, including one for the developer Monte Wenck in Eldorado (1962), and several houses in Pinyon Crest.

Many of these projects were designed with Robert Pitchford, with whom he had partnered around 1960, forming Bissner & Pitchford. One of their more novel projects was a bowling alley addition for Frank Sinatra’s Rancho Mirage compound (1963). Pitchford went on to a successful career himself.

Together they designed the building for the Rancho Super Car Wash in Rancho Mirage (1965), the plans exist. The building isn’t credited to them in some of the stories about it, making it unclear whether the plans were built. Pitchford was well-acquainted with the car wash owners and the building looks consistent with their work. The building was subsequently marked with its now iconic neon pink elephant sign.

Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historical Society. The Thanks for the Memories column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun. Write to her at pshstracy@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs history: The architectural minds behind Volcano House, Sands and Shadows